Son Kills his Father

Wednesday,April27th,2011

Paragraph 18 reads: "A family physician attended the home on a couple of occasions and prescribed antidepressants, but Ranjit Singh did not take the medicine consistently."

SSRI Stories note: Since this man had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, then antidepressants were contradicted in his case [unless covered by an antipsychotic] and, even then, this is considered highly suspect. The Physicians Desk Reference states that antidepressants can cause psychosis.

SSRI Stories additional note: Taking antidepressants inconsistently is the most dangerous way to take them. There is the withdrawal from the antidepressant happening time and time again.

Lawyers agree man who killed father was mentally ill

By Daryl Slade, Calgary Herald April 27, 2011

Crown prosecutor Gary Cornfield urged a judge on Tuesday to find a 31-year-old Calgary man not criminally responsible for the brutal killing of his father because the man was suffering from a mental disorder at the time.

Cornfield said he, co-Crown prosecutor Eliana Close and defence counsel Allan Fay all agree that Ranjit Singh was suffering from schizophrenia when he clubbed Harinder Singh, 60, the owner of two Subway sandwich stores in northeast Calgary, in the head in his bed at their northeast home on Dec. 7, 2009.

Cornfield said the injuries were caused by a heavy blunt object such as a pipe or a golf club -a weapon police never found.

Ranjit Singh is charged with second-degree murder.

Cornfield told Court of Queen's Bench Justice Barbara Hunt McDonald that Dr. Curtis Woods, a forensic psychiatrist retained to examine Ranjit Singh, said the accused was suffering from schizophrenia and qualifies for the defence of being not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder.

Cornfield also noted the forensic psychiatrist hired by the defence, Dr. David Tano, came to the same conclusion.

"Dr. Tano went even further," said Cornfield. "He said the accused didn't appreciate the nature and quality of the act.

"The Crown is urging . . . the court should find the accused committed the act that forms the basis of the charge, but is not criminally responsible."

Cornfield later played a lengthy videotaped police interview of Ranjit Singh after his arrest, in which Singh told Det. Ron Ho "a gentleman raped my sister in telepathy" and "I heard screams coming out of her in telepathy."

Later he told Ho: "My father is the gene of telepathy. He was the nurturing of this for the last seven, six, seven months. He was very smart in his telepathy."

Ranjit Singh sat through the hearing showing little emotion.

The only comment he made was when he accepted the agreed statement of facts as read into the court record by Cornfield.

According to the facts, Ranjit Singh has no recollection of the event that occurred just after 1 a.m. that day.

He had been living with his parents, sister and brother in the northeast community of Castleridge when the fatal incident occurred.

He had also worked as a manager of the family's fast food businesses.

Family members noticed a change in his behaviour leading up to the fateful day: he was becoming increasingly withdrawn and progressively unable to work.

They said he ate less frequently, lost a lot of weight, his hygiene declined and he began twitching more and more frequently.

A family physician attended the home on a couple of occasions and prescribed antidepressants, but Ranjit Singh did not take the medicine consistently.

In the statement to police after his arrest, Ranjit "mentioned a female's voice in his mind and that a demon was harassing him."

However, whenever he would go out with friends or a guest would come to the home, family members said he would seem normal.

"There were no verbal or physical altercations between the accused and Harinder in the weeks leading up to the incident on Dec. 7, 2009," Cornfield told the court in reading the statement of facts.

Both psychiatrists are scheduled to testify when the trial resumes today.